Of the 146
golf courses that closed in 2006, almost all were public
courses whose greens fees were less than $40. Golf courses designed
to accommodate everyone, regardless of socioeconomic standing, fell
by the wayside.
In essence, golf course owners and venture capitalists created a
disconnect between the sport's widespread popularity and the number
of courses being played. Golf participation continued to rise, but
not at the staggering rate of the previous decade - and, more
importantly, not at the rate that golf insiders projected.
"You can make a lot of analogies," Affeldt says. "In the fast-food
business, there [are] hundreds of thousands of fast-food
restaurants, and it doesn't mean that fewer people are eating fewer
hamburgers if a hamburger restaurant closes."
Affeldt believes the reason why so many public courses are going
under boils down to the combination of
real estate and operation.
He says too many people were enamored with the concept of golf
without understanding the combination of those two factors.
"Maybe they were good businesspeople but picked the wrong location
and lost," Affeldt explains. "Or maybe they were good real estate
people but bad businesspeople, and they had a nice piece of dirt
that would be better suited for some other purpose."
Golf continues to gain popularity;
more and more people are hitting the links and watching the game
than ever before. Golf course designer William Amick, who attended
the practice round at this year's Masters, referred to the warm-up
as a "frenzy."
"Almost too many people were there, if you ask me," he says. "We in
the industry like to see more people watching and more people
playing - that's what drives us to build. From that
standpoint, golf is healthy."